Gordon Drysdale helping Scoma’s modernize

1of4Restaurant goers prepare to eat lobster tail at Scoma's restaurant in San Francisco on September 18th 2013. Scoma's puts an emphasis on trying to serve some of the freshest fish in San francisco.Photo: Sam Wolson / Special to the Chronicle

2of4Fresh salmon at Scoma's restaurant in San Francisco on September 18th 2013. Scoma's puts an emphasis on trying to serve some of the freshest fish in San francisco.Photo: Sam Wolson / Special to the Chronicle

3of4Scoma's restaurant in San Francisco on September 18th 2013. Scoma's puts an emphasis on trying to serve some of the freshest fish in San francisco.Photo: Sam Wolson, Special to the Chronicle

4of4Scoma’s restaurant on Fisherman’s Wharf is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year and making improvements, including new blood and a better-executed menu.Photo: Liz Hafalia / Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle 2013

Like many locals, not to mention food-loving locals, Gordon Drysdale was not a frequent visitor to Fishermen’s Wharf.

Yet on a recent Tuesday, Drysdale — the noted San Francisco chef who made his name at the bygone Gordon’s House of Fine Eats — strolled out from the kitchen at Scoma’s to chat about his new gig in the unlikeliest of places, as the culinary director of the Pier 47 institution.

As Etta James and Frank Sinatra crooned in the background, Drysdale perched on one of the restaurant’s vintage stuffed leather chairs, wearing his signature tinted glasses. And though his spiky blond hair has subtly faded into a light gray in recent years, the jovial, even hyperactive chef speaks as enthusiastically as ever, conveying the same charisma that made him one of the city’s favorite chefs.

“If this goes OK, this will be a resurrection along the lines of Jeremiah Tower’s Tavern on the Green,” Drysdale, 58, says with a chuckle, before getting a little more serious. He acknowledges that the financial aspects make it worthwhile for him and his family, but he also came to a realization that being a chef was more than intricately arranged plates.

“At a certain part of your career, you go, 'My art will be here and my business will be here.’ This is never going to be Lazy Bear. It’s never going to be Dirty Habit,” says Drysdale, referring to two of the city’s trendier new restaurants. “It’s always going to be a wharf restaurant.”

Just as importantly, there was a revelation about the impact that larger-scale operations can have: “As snow starts falling on top of this cedar, I have a little bit of a soapbox. I’m starting to realize I can affect a much bigger slice of the world than having 50 diners and serving them nine courses.”

Scoma’s is hoped to be that platform. The 330-seat restaurant, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, serves well over a thousand diners on busy days; Restaurant Business Magazine ranked it as the second-highest-grossing independent restaurant in San Francisco.

But not too long ago, owner Tom Creedon saw the tide turning, and brought aboard some new blood to help ensure that calcification doesn’t set in for Scoma’s — and to make certain it has a place on the wharf for another half century. Creedon brought in operations pro Jay Schimmel, who in turn persuaded Drysdale and newly appointed executive chef Efren Sandoval to help bring the kitchen of Scoma’s into the modern age.

The pair has not lost sight of the restaurant’s core; after all, Budweiser and Bud Light remain its top-selling beers. But small improvements and fundamentals are taking hold.

To accompany the restaurant’s pristine seafood — often loaded directly from the water, a few steps from the restaurant — actual fresh vegetables from real farmers are now seen at Scoma’s, replacing the frozen carrots and peas seen throughout the neighborhood; there’s even a salad on the menu cheekily titled Unintimidating Mixed Greens.

Also gone are the winter eggplant Parmesan dishes, as produce seasonality — ubiquitous everywhere else in San Francisco — has finally broken through to Fisherman’s Wharf.

And that chowder? It now uses house-made fish stock.

But for the most part, it’s the same menu, executed better.

“We have a shot to represent ourselves in a more relevant light,” says Schimmel. “A relevant restaurant on the wharf, as opposed to a cream-heavy, fried-intensive menu.”

Scoma’s is a newly certified partner of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch, joining nearby Bistro Boudin and Pescatore as the only restaurants on Fisherman’s Wharf proper to have such environmentally responsible certification.

(Think about that: On Fisherman’s Wharf, tourist-supposed mecca of seafood, there are three — count ’em, three — restaurants employing ocean-friendly seafood choices as recommended by our local experts. Just imagine if others in the neighborhood followed suit and stopped buying bluefin tuna, orange roughy and farmed shrimp. That could be millions of dollars’ worth of purchasing power for good.)

Drysdale has more ideas for the Scoma’s Vatican-like complex, which essentially dominates the entirety of Pier 47 on the appropriately named Al Scoma Way.

Since it’s all but impossible to get port approval for new retail use of existing buildings, he has conjured up a 12- to 18-month plan to resuscitate the restaurant’s dormant smokehouse, adjacent to the restaurant and the Scoma’s fishing boat — which, in an ideal world, could provide local salmon for smoking. And because nothing goes better with smoked fish, Drysdale also dreams of utilizing that wood fire to bake Montreal-style bagels, served up to picnic tables overlooking the docks.

“When we get done with it, there won’t be anything like it in San Francisco,” says Drysdale.

And though some part of him once yearned for cooking more personal — or ego-driven — food, or a restaurant that is an extension of himself, he is at peace. “For creative types, there’s always an outlet for whatever it is you do. In my free time, it’s music now. I make music. I recently bought a six-string banjo.”

The constant shuffle: More chef movement from around the Bay Area:

Eric Tucker’s 20-year-old vegan restaurant Millennium (580 Geary St.) is closing at the end of the month. That’s the bad news. The good news is that Tucker and general manager Alison Bagby have a new home for Millennium. They have inked a lease at Oakland’s shuttered Box & Bells (5912 College Ave.), right in the heart of Rockridge; they hope to open this summer.

Up in Napa Valley, Charlie Palmer has picked a chef for Harvest Table, his forthcoming restaurant in St. Helena’s Harvest Inn (One Main St.), which he bought last year. Levi Mezick, last seen making headlines at Monterey’s Restaurant 1833, will be running the kitchen.

Back in the city, Alta CA (1420 Market St.) opening chef Yoni Levy has left; chef-owner Daniel Patterson has replaced Levy with sous chef David Goody. It’s been a busy month so far for Patterson and the DPG, which also opened a new restaurant in the Mission: Aster (1001 Guerrero St.), helmed by former Chronicle Rising Star Brett Cooper.

Paolo Lucchesi is the San Francisco Chronicle’s Inside Scoop columnist. He covers all breaking restaurant news in the Bay Area, from openings and closings to chef gossip and other food media. Before coming to The Chronicle food section, he served as the founding editor of Eater San Francisco, which launched in fall 2007, and later Eater National, which launched in fall 2009.